Flash Burned (15 page)

I winced at his quick grip—he'd let go instantly.

“Not your fault,” I eeped out. The pain and the blood made me queasy. My mind turned a bit hazy. I suspected I had a concussion from the blow.

“Anyway,” I said. “Thank God everyone escaped.” Though relief couldn't fully register. There were too many petrified and wounded people. And no Dane and Amano. “Chef,” I insisted, my own eyes as wide and wild, “where is he? Where are they?”

“Ari.” He stared at me a few agonizing moments, then slowly shook his head. “They were the last ones inside. Still in the lobby when—”

“No,” I said on a broken breath. My eyes squeezed shut.

Kyle handed me off to my father while he still had his cell to his ear.

“Where are you going?” I demanded in a hoarse voice as I slumped against my dad's side.

“I can't just stand here and do nothing,” Kyle shot back. He gave me a full-on tormented look, taking in my injuries, which were apparently quite bad, because he raked a hand through his hair and added, “But damn it, I can't leave you.”

“Then don't,” I urged. Regardless of my foggy brain, I knew exactly what my best friend had in mind. “Just stay here. Help the people who are out here.”

He gave me a long look, our eyes locked. I saw his internal tug-of-war. He hated to leave me. Was torn by it. But Kyle was the stuff of which heroes were made. He'd proven it to me more than once.

Before I could get another word of protest out, he whirled around and ran toward the roaring inferno.

I screamed, yelling out for him. More pain sliced through my heart. My dad held me even tighter.

Chef also called out for Kyle to come back. But he didn't return.

Chef's attention zeroed in on me again, though it barely registered. In a tight voice, he said, “I'm so sorry. Dane and Amano wouldn't leave until everyone was safe.”

The throbbing and the haze in my head intensified. A raging pulse beat in my ears. Fury and heartbreak ripped through me, as hot and bright as the mammoth flames engulfing the night.

It couldn't be true.

It was impossible.

There was no way Dane and Amano could have been trapped inside, couldn't have made it out in time.

No
.
Way.

And now Kyle was chasing after them to do what? Charge into a burning building and try to rescue them?

I could hardly fathom the nightmare suddenly seizing me. My legs shook and my heart felt as though it were being beaten to a bloody pulp with a bat.

Someone—Chef or my dad—dabbed at the crimson river mixed with tears covering my face. I couldn't make out who, because the sticky mess was blinding, along with the pounding in my head.

I struggled again. My dad gently held me. “Ari, just stop.”

“Don't let Kyle go in there.”

I felt my body slip from my dad's grip. Slowly crinkling. Everything was slipping away.

“Dane!” I cried once more, weakly.

“Ari. Stay with me, sweets. Come on now.” My dad's tone was frantic as he eased to the ground with me.

He started talking, but I couldn't latch on to his words. All I heard were the shocked cries, the snapping and crackling of mile-high flames, the popping of whatever continued to explode inside what was left of 10,000 Lux, and the sirens in the distance. So very, very far away. Nowhere near close enough to save the hotel or anything—
anyone
—inside it.

And what about Kyle, so determined to risk life and limb for … Dane and Amano?

Oh, God.

He really was a hero.

All three of them were.

I cried harder. I tried to lurch forward once more in my dazed state. But I was weightless and floating.

Then there was nothing but darkness.

*   *   *

I woke to more voices. Not necessarily calm ones. More like insistent and under-the-breath ones. As though they didn't want me to hear.

“Completely incinerated … Acres scorched…”

“Ammonium nitrate … explosion…”

“Needed volunteer firefighters from Oak Creek and Flagstaff…”

“Search and rescue team onsite…”

“Others released from the ER … Just Ari under observation…”

“Police have questions … FBI has been called in … Criminal investigation…”

My eyes remained closed and I drifted back into darkness.

I came to from time to time, surmising I was in a hospital room. But the pain was so excruciating, I didn't move or bother to open my eyes. Why didn't they give me something more potent?

My best guess was that if I had a concussion they'd prefer I be awake as much as possible the first twenty-four hours.

Impossible.

It wasn't so much that I slept … I was pretty sure I blacked out from the throbbing, the haze, and the sheer torment of it all.

It took a while for coherent thoughts to gel in my mind. I had no idea how long, but eventually I was a bit clearer in the head. I licked my lips, only to discover they were coated with a vanilla-flavored balm that my dad or one of the nurses must have brought from the gift shop. My mouth, however, was bone-dry.

I noted that my breathing wasn't quite normal, coming in heavy pulls. And I was nauseous.

Finally mustering some strength, I forced my lids open. Stared across the room at where Kyle sat in a chair, flipping agitatedly through a magazine, not even stopping to read the articles or view the pictures.

I jerked awake at the sight of him. Worse for wear, what with some bandages and burns, but sitting right there beside me.

“Oh, thank God you're alive!” The enthusiasm echoed in my head, not my voice. It was a mere wisp of air.

Kyle tossed aside the magazine. My dad, who'd paced alongside him, came to an immediate halt. They'd changed clothes, but they both had fresh scrapes and bruises that told me I hadn't been out too long. Maybe no more than a day or so.

They both closed in on me. I tried to remain focused. Funny, with all the napping, I should feel refreshed and alert. Instead, I was thoroughly exhausted. Like I could sleep away the rest of the month.

Dane would never let me get away with that.

Dane.

I sat bolt upright at the thought of him. Then promptly let out an ear-piercing wail at the pain that shot through me. I dropped back to the bed.

“Ari,” my dad said, his voice thick with worry.

I couldn't concentrate on him, what with the blinding agony and the sudden reminder of what Chef D'Angelo had said.

“Dad.” I reached out for him, groping the air. He helped out, clasping my wrist. I realized my hands were wrapped in bandages.

During my drifting in and out, in another conversation I'd heard someone mentioning I had nearly twenty stitches along my hairline. Yet another scar, compliments of the corrupt members of the secret society. And I'd needed a dozen more stitches on my palms from the cuts I'd collected when trying to help the others who'd escaped the hotel.

But that was really of little concern at the moment.

“Where's Dane?” I demanded. “Why isn't he here?”

Because what Chef D'Angelo had told me could
not
be true.

The door flew open and a nurse rushed in—clearly, she'd heard my scream.

My dad told her, “She's in a lot of pain. Can't you give her something stronger?”

“Dr. Lindsey's orders,” she told him, a bit exasperated, as though she'd reiterated that a thousand times before. Had I been whimpering or groaning in my sleep? “You can speak with the doctor again when she returns this afternoon.”

I wasn't quite following the exchange. To the nurse, I pleaded, “I need a painkiller.”

“You're being administered a low dosage of acetaminophen. It's perfectly safe, I assure you.”

My brows knitted.
“Safe?”

Kyle swore under his breath and moved away from the bed. My dad's jaw clenched. I cataloged all the responses, but my mind wasn't functioning well enough for me to process all of this.

Catching on to that, my dad gently rested his hand on my shoulder and tentatively said, “Ari…” He shook his head. Tried again. “Did you know…?”

I stared quizzically at him for several suspended seconds.

What the hell was going on?

“Ari,” Kyle broke the silence with a clipped, anguished tone. “You're pregnant.”

 

chapter 8

“I'm
what
?”

I stared blankly. Gaping. Reeling. Wanting desperately to sit up again but knowing the agony that would ensue.

“Guess that answers that question,” my father grumbled.

I very carefully rolled my head on the pillow to look back at the nurse. She nodded in confirmation.

“I'm Claudia,” she introduced herself. “Let me know if there's anything else I can do. For now, I'm sorry about the pain. But you can speak with Dr. Lindsey about it.”

Claudia jotted down my vitals on a chart while I fought my way through emotions that were nearly impossible to dissect.

I was pregnant?

For God's sake, I was on the pill. So how on earth…?

I groaned inwardly. “Of course,” I muttered.

“What?” Kyle asked.

I fought the natural compulsion to shake my head. It'd only cause more pain. But I did roll my eyes at my own irresponsibility. “I've been so absorbed with everything happening at the Lux that I forgot about routine appointments, skipped taking my allergy pills from time to time, and…”

“And what?” my dad demanded, a deeply concerned edge to his voice. “Skipped your birth control pills, too?”

“Not
skipped,
” I assured him. Then cringed. Really, this was something I had to discuss with my father? It was bad enough that Kyle glared at me as though I were the biggest fool on the planet. Now I had to admit the truth to my dad?

Ugh.

The agony of my injuries didn't eclipse my humiliation. “Okay, yes,” I simply said.

What else was there to tell them? I hadn't been cognizant of missing my nightly doses … but now that I seriously thought about it … I couldn't remember taking a pill the night of the Thanksgiving dinner at the Lux or on Thanksgiving Day when Dane had proposed. The night of our wedding … nope. A few nights when I'd been so wrapped around the schematics of Christmas decoration placement at the hotel that I'd fallen asleep without having the slightest bit of energy left over for taking off my makeup—or even popping a pill.

Holy Christ.

Honestly, birth control and allergy medicine had been the last things on my mind!

But I had even bigger concerns to work through.

My gaze slid back to my dad. “Dane…?”

The expression on his face said it all. My heart wrenched and I let out a small cry. “It can't be true!” A fresh batch of tears flooded my eyes. “It can't be true!”

“Sweets,” he said. “Dane did everything he could to get his staff out of the hotel. He saved a lot of lives. In fact, you were the only one who was significantly hurt. The rest were released from the ER. Like, ten or twelve of them. Mostly injuries caused from the inertia of the explosion, and some struck by debris because they were still too close to the building.”

“And Kyle's burns?” I quietly demanded.

My best friend returned to my side. In a solemn voice, he said, “They're not bad at all. I couldn't get into the lobby. The fire was too intense. Those of us who got out … we were all really lucky, Ari. It could have been so much worse. But I'm—I
am
sorry. About Dane. Him and Amano,” he amended. “They saved everyone, Ari.”

I choked on a sob. Couldn't stop myself from crying.

“Maybe you gentlemen should take a break,” Claudia suggested. “You've been here the majority of the time. Ari needs her rest. And I really can't have her blood pressure and pulse elevated higher. It's not good for her or the baby.”

I wept harder, burying my face in the side of the pillow. My body shook, but I tried not to thrash on the bed, to not disturb the IV they'd obviously had to put in the crook of my arm, since my hands were wrapped. I surmised they'd detected my pregnancy when they'd drawn blood for labs.

I was completely torn, lost without Dane. Shredded to the core.

Looping over and over was the harrowing reality that everything in my life had been destroyed.

Dane—my husband.

My wedding band—because I had no idea how I'd ever get my bracelet back. The symbol of our marriage might be lost forever … along with the only person I would ever love.

10,000 Lux was gone as well—decimated.

It'd all been stripped away from me, so quickly. Like that entire chapter of my life had been erased in one horrific nightmare. As though it never existed.

Yet there was a voice inside my head screaming at me to pull myself together, to concentrate on the fact that I carried Dane's child. That a part of him lived on … inside me.

All that did was make me cry more, perhaps because there wasn't tangible proof. In my mind, it was still hearsay. People telling me I was pregnant.

And me still in denial because I hadn't missed
too
many pills.…

I winced. Fuck, what did I know about how many were conceivably acceptable to miss? And if this was all true and not some deranged nightmare … exactly how pregnant was I?

The guys left, but Claudia stayed, pulling up a chair and very gingerly rubbing my shoulder, stroking my arm. Compassionately saying how sorry she was, but that everything would be okay. Dr. Lindsey had ordered an ultrasound. They closely monitored my recovery. On and on Claudia went, trying to soothe me while I gaped and couldn't even form words to get my endless questions answered.

I couldn't separate the good news from the ghastly. Especially with the terrified voice gaining strength and volume in my head. I'd tried surviving, existing, without Dane once before. It hadn't worked.